A DREAM Team Mentors Students on Houston’s East Side

By David Medina

When Sergio Borrego was a junior at Stephen F. Austin High School, he didn’t know that he needed a fourth year of mathematics to prepare for a major in mechanical engineering.

But thanks to Designing with Rice Engineers — an Austin Mentorship (DREAM), Borrego has altered his plan accordingly and is moving forward with his college applications. A high school senior, he currently is applying to Rice and other Texas universities.

“It wasn’t that Sergio didn’t like math,” said Brent Houchens, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice. “He just hadn’t been told to take as much math as possible to prepare for college life in engineering.”

Houchens, who has been mentoring Borrego for a year, is one of the co-founders of DREAM. The other is senior Daniela Rimer, who also is president of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers at Rice. The purpose of the program is to team Rice undergraduates with 25 high school students, mostly ninth graders, from Austin High School on Houston’s east side.

“The underlying goal,” said Houchens, “is to mentor underrepresented students so that they are better prepared to enter science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, but the mechanism is a design problem and team interaction.”

For example, the Austin students formed teams and worked on the same challenge faced by Rice students at the engineering competition held during National Engineers Week.

The teams — one Rice student for every two from Austin High School — were challenged to create a device that slows the descent of a dropped Ping-Pong ball. The undergrads met with the high school students daily for one week and continued meeting with them once a week until the competition, which was held last fall.

“The completion of a design project provides the Rice and Austin students a goal while offering a better funnel for mentoring students,” Rimer explained.

Stephanie Rice, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering at Rice, said she wasn’t immediately convinced of the program’s value. “I was a little skeptical at first, until I realized how great DREAM was compared to just helping with homework. The students are actually excited about what they’re doing. And I had fun, too.”

Borrego agrees. “It was pretty awesome, and the experience gives us a heads-up of what to expect in college.”